


A Sea Change

by Kinkubus



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Calling out the mental toll being a hero would have on Percy, F/F, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, M/M, Percy is depressed and needs a lot more than a hug, Percy is fed up with the god's shit, THAT BEING SAID, Triton is the best, and will tell them, surprise twist, this is an upbeat work and will have a happy ending
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:55:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27741112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kinkubus/pseuds/Kinkubus
Summary: After his teen years spent fixing one godly fuck-up after another, Percy is left isolated and disenfranchised after the Giant's War. Abandoned by his fellow campers, cut off from his girlfriend, and resentful of the way his sacrifice has seemingly changed absolutely nothing about the gods' behaviour, Percy returns to Camp Half-Blood demoralised and alone. And what's going on with the voices whispering in his ears whenever he gets near water? In the absence of a competent adult who cares about his mental state, Percy is shoved onto a new quest which he is only vaguely associated with, and which, unwittingly, sets him on a path to true happiness.
Relationships: Percy Jackson/Triton
Comments: 9
Kudos: 37





	A Sea Change

The Poseidon cabin was filled with restless moans. Midnight had passed hours ago, and now the first tentative rays of dawn peeked above the tree-line and began to lighten the inky black sky. But whilst the rest of camp continued to slumber softly in their respective cabins, Percy tossed and turned on his bed, unable to slip into sleep. Five months have passed since the end of the Giant War and, to the untrained eye, Camp Half-Blood appeared to have returned to normal. Campers train during the day, and congregate in the evenings to sing around a fire and play Capture the Flag. Baring the odd, Roman addition or the increasing array of visitors, nothing seems to have changed; Chiron remarks nightly about the resilience of demigods, how their ability to bounce back from the horrors they have experienced makes them the most impressive of all Olympus’ defenders. But this time, Percy found it impossible to respond the way he always had done, to brush off the nightmares with a laugh, to surround himself with warmth and chatter to drown out the fear in his chest. He could not imagine jumping into the next quest with the same reckless abandon that he remembers from his early years here, in fact, every time he gripped Riptide, his hands began to shake, and he broke out in a sweat. Conserving rations during his time in the Pit meant that his stomach rebelled at the mere thought of food, and no matter how often he showered, he could still feel the chalky dust of the place clinging to his skin. Sleep offered little escape, as half-remembered, half-imagined monsters pursued him in his dreams, leaving behind the distinctive sulphurous stench of Tartarus. Unable to sleep, but too tired to train, Percy found himself sitting apart from the other campers, and every time Chiron began to praise the demigod’s inherent resilience, he would scoff and turn away. The reason demigods rarely reach his level of demoralisation is because they seldom survive long enough. 

Giving up on sleep, Percy pushed aside the covers and left the cabin, wending his way down towards the lake. This used to be his favourite spot in all of Camp, every night the softly singing voice of the water would send him drifting off to sleep, knowing from the gentle way the waves slapped the shore that all was well, and the Camp was safe. Now though, the water was anything but gentle, constantly hurrying along with scattered and frightened whispers pressing on his eardrums. He dreaded every morning after a storm, as the raindrops blended into the swirling lake, bringing stories of pain and terror from the open ocean.

This place was also special as it was the scene of his and Annabeth’s first kiss. He could recall the details so clearly, from his friend’s jeering faces to the softness of her lips as they met his. If he concentrated hard enough, he could almost feel her arms around his shoulders, clutching him to her. But those memories were all he had of her these days, as she’d taken off with her father to find some cousin of hers in Boston. It wasn’t that he missed her, he did, of course. But there was a deeper layer of resentment simmering inside him which flared up every time he heard her name mentioned. The idea that the Greek/Roman pantheon weren’t the only gods which existed was a jarring concept, and he couldn’t bring himself to believe that this was the first time any of the gods had heard of them. He could just imagine how it would play out; it would be just like the introduction of the Roman gods, only this time the gods wouldn’t be split between two personalities. Instead they’d probably level cities in their fight over which pantheon was more worthy of worship, and Percy was willing to bet that, given the level of crossover that was bound to have happened, there’d be fights over who commanded the sea the best, who should ruled the dead. He’d even heard that there was a Norse god of Thunder, and he could already picture the death toll from Thor and Zeus having a lightening throwing contest. He could bet that this whole scenario had already played itself out centuries ago, and eventually some temporary stalemate had been reached. But now, he had a dreadful feeling that Annabeth’s actions were going to stir things up again, which would mean another Great War looming on the horizon. But his concerns had fallen on deaf ears.

“We can’t just let the gods stagnate Percy!” Annabeth had seemed so scandalised by the idea that she should just drop the issue. “If what you’re saying is true then we have a duty to pull them out of their traditional way of thinking and force them to integrate.”

“At what cost, Annabeth? It took hundreds dying in the Titan war for the gods to wake up and realise they shouldn’t ignore the minor gods. Then even more died in both Camp Jupiter and Camp Half-Blood when if we’d known about each other beforehand we’d have been a stronger force to resist the Giants. And that’s not even counting the Amazons and Huntresses whose ranks were decimated by the war.”

“But that’s exactly my point!” Annabeth stamped her foot. “If we’d been united with the Roam camp beforehand those people might not have died. We need to integrate before another larger threat comes and it becomes too late! And besides, since when has people dying been a surprise?”

“…”

“Well- come on! I didn’t mean it like that. But you’ve known that we could likely die every time we go into battle, and that’s never stopped you before. We are demigods, we make the sacrifices that others can’t.”

‘And you’re happy to do that are you Annabeth? Were you happy to fall into the Pit, to spend god knows how much time trapped there, to toil on, not knowing if this quest would matter at all since it would only work if everyone else was doing the same thing in the world above? And when we finally had a glimpse of our freedom, were you happy to run towards it, to choose our lives over those of Bob and Damasen, who stood and covered our escape with their lives? Tell me you don’t wake up every night screaming because of what happened to us down there, which was more of a sacrifice than any god, any parent had a right to ask!”

“No. Sorry Percy, but I don’t. And if I am ever visited at night by those fears, then I tell myself that whatever I lost down there was freely given, and more than worth it. We did the right thing Percy, and I know that I am doing the right thing now.”

And that had been the end of that conversation. To be fair to Annabeth, Percy knew that she wasn’t at all as heartless as she liked to make out, but the barebones of what she had said were true. She didn’t have nightmares nearly as frequently as he did, she still trained as hard as she ever had and had girls’ nights with Piper and Hazel. She read new books and came up with new designs on Daedalus’s laptop, and if she had any doubts about what she was supposed to do with her life now, she buried them deep. And Percy knew that the main difference between her and himself, was their belief in the godly system they served. Annabeth was just following a tried and tested routine of acceptance and cheerful resignation which they had both created and participated in after every quest and every war. No matter what the gods threw at them, they survived and excelled, no matter how many they lost, the grieved but moved on, because Olympus’ Will was law and Olympus had no room for the easily broken. 

But whilst Annabeth was still firmly tethered to that way of thinking, all of Percy’s self-reassuring perspectives had snapped when he had been dragged from the Pit and had opened his eyes to a world which acknowledged his sacrifice but did nothing to alleviate it. There was no suggestion that these wars, and the massacres that followed them, should guide the gods towards changing their ways, and Percy was absolutely fed up of being Olympus’ moral compass. For all that demigods reflected the changing attitudes of their time, they should not have to bear the burden of godly consciences, as well as the weight of their tempers and mistakes. It should not be up to him or Annabeth to wake the gods up to the errors of their ways, and Zeus’ pathetic and moronic ruling that Apollo was somehow guilty for the Giants War, when it was Hera’s own mind-games which had almost cost them victory, just reinforced that point. At some point he had stopped viewing Olympus as something to be protected and instead had begun seeing it as something which should be exposed and transformed. He remembered standing in the Council Hall, remembered how the overwhelming weight of all that power combined together had buzzed around his head. At the time he had been awed, and intimidated. Now he saw it for what it really was. Toxic.

He longed for the freedom of the sea; the sensation of all his worries leaving him the minute his head slipped beneath the waves. When he tried to picture what peace might look like, the previous image of his mother, Paul and the new baby was no longer enough. Instead he felt cut off from that life; his mother would always love him, no matter what, he knew that. But he wasn’t blind, and he knew well that for all her endless patience, her new daughter must be such a relief to her. To only face the normal stresses about a baby, the teething, the lack of sleep, not the fear of monsters and vengeful Gods, not the certainty that his father had left and couldn’t even offer the most basic protection, not the necessity to marry a smelly, abusive waste of space in order to protect her problem kid, who couldn’t read properly and always failed out of school. Estelle wouldn’t have those problems; she was Paul’s daughter, so she was probably going to be much smarter than he ever was, and he could just imagine them trying to explain his life to her as she grew up, this high school drop-out who couldn’t hold down a job, and hung out all the time at this summer camp for kids. They wouldn’t tell her about the gods, or who his father was, or the battles he had fought in, all for them. No, they wouldn’t want to drag her into that world, and Percy couldn’t blame them. His world had never been kind to him or his mother, he dreaded to think what it would do to his baby sister. 

But he was cut off from his home under the sea too. Triton had never liked him, had tolerated him only because there was a job to do, and he could hardly be hopeful of a welcome with Amphitrite either. And even if his father did welcome him in Atlantis, what on earth would he do there? He was barely existing here, he couldn’t even summon the energy to train, and sooner or later he knew he wouldn’t even bother coming down to meals. He wasn’t disturbed here because the other campers knew his story, knew what he had done and although they might privately think he was weak and pathetic, they were too respectful to say it to his face. He had no illusions that Atlantis would look kindly on a useless, broken mortal, who was a constant reminder of Poseidon’s infidelity. No, there was no hope of peace in his future, just an endless continuation of drudging, mindless days blurring into one another. If only there were a way out.

~*~

The strange thing about wishing something existed is that the Universe will almost always then place events in your path that could make your wish possible. After a night spent longing for an escape from his current situation, Percy went down to breakfast next morning only to be confronted with a possible answer to his prayers. He was called into the Big House by Chiron and informed of something which had happened last night. It turned out that there was a large Cetus terrorising the bay just a few miles north of Camp and last night Rachel had IM’d the camp to issue a prophecy to one of the newest campers, a muscle-bound jock type from the Hermes Cabin. According to Chiron, this camper, whose name was Gideon, had already selected one other camper to accompany him, a girl from the Aphrodite Cabin called Robin, leaving only one slot left open. 

“I have counselled the boy that it would be a good idea to bring along a member of the Poseidon Cabin, because of a line in the prophecy which concerns me.” Chiron leant forward earnestly and began to recite:

You shall begin your travels, two marked for death  
But the other shall fall in their place instead  
The seed of Poseidon shall defeat the known beast  
A warrior shall rise to unite us, from West to East  
Down to the deepest trench, he must fall  
To save the world from mortal and immortal, all.

“To hear ‘the seed of Poseidon’ so named in a prophecy is rare, and given that there are no other campers in the Poseidon Cabin, it seems imperative for you to join the quest, given that you shall, it seems, defeat the beast.”

“The beast?”

“It is likely that this refers to the Cetus, given that this is the known beast and that the prophecy apparently occurred immediately after we had word of the monster’s proximity.”

Percy nodded, it did make a sort of sense, especially given that prophecies rarely made sense until they were completed. 

“What about the rest? The marked for death parts?”

Chiron shrugged. “I suppose that one could argue that you have been marked for death, given the staggering amount of prophecies aimed your way over your lifetime. As to the other one, I wouldn’t like to speculate. No doubt it will be revealed in due course. I must say, I had hope you would be more upbeat about this.”

Percy looked stunned. “Upbeat?”

Chiron smiled. “Well, yes. After all, I know it’s been difficult, being stuck here whilst Annabeth goes about doing the god’s work. But here you have your own quest, a chance of making new friends with the campers still here, you even get to fight a sea monster! I understand that you have been accustomed to being the focus of a prophecy, but you mustn’t begrudge Gideon his chance. The chance to be ‘the warrior who unites us’ and who ‘saves the world from mortal and immortal, all’ is a prestigious one, and he is justly proud of the Fate’s recognition of his potential. No doubt you’ll find your place on this quest, just as you did on the others.”

Percy stared at Chiron, almost amazed at the utter rubbish pouring out of his mouth. When had he ever sought the acclaim of being the focus of a prophecy? When had it ever brought him or his fellow demigods anything good? Having survived this long, Percy had quickly come to the conclusion that a demigod could reasonably hope for was a glorious death, something quick which would send them off to Elysium without too much pain, and which wouldn’t leave them hanging around aimlessly in the land of the living, old and jaded before their time. Unable to know where to even begin with Chiron’s little speech, Percy just shook his head and left to get ready for departure.

~*~

It became clear, soon into the first leg of the journey, why Gideon had picked Robin to accompany him. They did not get on at all, and Robin was eager to fill Percy in on Gideon’s sad history. Apparently, monsters had found his mother when he was just a baby, and so he had been put into the foster care system, unconsciously dooming each family who took him in to a gristly death as various creatures from horror movies followed him from state to state, with him barely escaping each time. Percy put the rest together pretty quickly. To both Gideon and Chiron, it seemed a forgone conclusion that he, with his gloomy, broken manner, was already marked for death, and Gideon must have identified himself as the second component of that line. Gideon had therefore chosen a camper who he could afford to lose without losing too much sleep over it, assuming that Robin would somehow miraculously sacrifice herself for both of them along the course of the quest. Percy could only wish that he had been surprised. Gideon, when they’d met for the first time that morning, had seemed the very embodiment of the phrase ‘chip on the shoulder’ and since then had done nothing to dispel that impression. He was loud, rude, he crashed through the forest they were trekking through like a rampaging buffalo, and his constant flexing of his admittedly extensive muscles when he got anywhere near Robin (and her lack of any response) revealed the exact cause of their antagonism. For all that he doubtless had lingering issues from his deeply traumatic childhood, Percy found it very difficult to empathise with someone who brought along a spare for the specific purpose of sending them like a lamb to the slaughter. 

Still, he could hardly be considered blameless, Percy thought to himself as he tried in vain to block out the squabbling of the other two. He had his own interpretation of that line, and the miraculous avenue of escape it offered. And as the three demigods made their way ever closer towards the bay, a plan began to unfurl in Percy’s tortured, browbeaten mind.

**Author's Note:**

> So AN: So clearly Percy is in a seriously bad way and is not really up for making good decisions. If anyone thought I should have placed better warnings around this chapter: depression/ discussion of possible suicide etc- please let me know in the comments and I will. 
> 
> Also- I actually like Annabeth and Chiron in the books. But this is a story about how the system needs to be pulled down and both seem like characters who would resist that. Also I can't say that I don't enjoy the mean girlfriend trope so staunch fans of Annabeth might not want to read on.


End file.
